Lapping, Polishing Film Maximizes Strengths, Maintains Flexibility

Photo Credit: Titan Tool Supply

The Dia-Strip and Dia-Sheet lapping and polishing film from Titan Tool Supply Inc., a supplier of industrial-grade optical instrumentation and precision micro finishing tools, is designed to provide cost-effective, reliable, microfinishing support for a variety of challenging lapping and deburring tasks. Applications include the precision polishing of plastic molds, die cast dies, carbide and ceramics. Dia-Strip and Dia-Sheet film incorporate pure virgin diamond powders in their highest concentrated forms, which the company says enables maximum material strength, durability and performance.

The powders are first graded for uniformity and then held into place by a thin nickel. With this approach, 90% of the grains are left exposed for cutting, yet are unable to escape the film because of the strength of the bonding agent. This construction is said to make Dia-Sheets and Dia-Strips highly durable, yet also flexible, bendable and formable. As a result, Titan Tool Supply says the film can cut virtually any material, including steel, stainless steel, carbide, ceramics, glass, plastics and wood. It is also compatible with EDM surface finishes, which are typically too hard to be touched by most abrasives.

Film is offered with a choice of either 2" × 4" Dia-Sheets or 0.5" × 2" Dia-Strips in thicknesses ranging from 0.003" to 0.019". It is further offered with a choice of six distinctive grits, ranging from coarse 80/100 (0.012" thickness), to superfine 1100 (0.003" thickness). Overall film flexibility and thickness is directly proportional to customer choice of coarseness or grain size.

Titan Tool Supply’s Dia-Strip and Dia-Sheet lapping and polishing film is also said to be highly adaptable to a variety of specialty precision microfinishing applications. The film can be cut to size via the use of scissors or tin snips and is supplied with 3M double-sided industrial tape. As the film backing is completely flat, it can bond onto any material and form the shape needed to create specialty tooling, lapping and deburring wheels. This also makes the film particularly useful within plastic mold and cast die manufacturing applications. These applications typically have precision polishing of thin slots and slits as a finishing requirement, yet the use of traditional polishing stones would be otherwise precluded because they are prone to breakage.

The film is also well suited for precision microfinishing lapping and polishing requirements within space-constrained environments, as well as the lapping of curves, contours or other complex geometries. Additional applications for Dia-Strip and Dia-Sheet film include specialty deburring tools, diamond wheels, specially shaped diamond dressers for aluminum oxide or silicon carbide grinding wheels and stones, specialty hones and sanding discs.